It's not that life is unfair - you have the wrong concept of justice.

Unless you are a winner, almost your whole life seems like a monstrous injustice. The truth is that life simply plays by different rules.
By the present rules. And only they matter. These rules, however, are somewhat more complicated and considerably less comfortable than most people are able to comprehend.
Let's try anyway. And at the same time draw parallels with a career in IT.

Rule number 1: All life is a struggle, competition
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Do you do business? - Someone wants to destroy it. Do you like work? - Someone wants to replace you with a computer program. Are you aiming for a friend, a friend, a high-paying job, a Nobel Prize? - All the others too.



We compete all the time, although we don’t want to talk about it. Many of the achievements can be assessed only on the background of how others do it: you swim better, dance better, you have more likes on Facebook than on average. Wonderful.
This, of course, is inconvenient to recognize, but we constantly compare ourselves with others. We are told: "Just show me what you can do." Or: "Your main competitor is yourself." But the whole trick of these platitudes is that they are designed to force you to put as much effort as possible all the same. If competitiveness really didn’t matter, we would advise fighting children to simply give up.

Fortunately for us, we do not live in a world where everyone needs to gnaw through another throat in order to succeed. The advantage of modern civilization is in the abundance of opportunities, which are enough to make ends meet and without direct competition (for more details, see the article on how to find your calling ).

However, one should never succumb to collective deception, as if there is no struggle. People dress to get a partner. People come to an interview to win a job. If you deny the competition, you simply lose. Everything that is in demand is subject to competition. And the best goes only to those who truly want to achieve this.

Rule number 2: You are judged by your deeds, not by your thoughts

Society evaluates a person by what he can do for others. Can you save a child from a burning house, remove a tumor or make a full room laugh? If yes, you have something to appreciate.
But we estimate ourselves differently. We evaluate ourselves according to our thoughts.



"I'm good". "I am ambitious." "I am better than her." Such sluggish mantras can calm at night, but this has almost no relation to how the world perceives us. It is even a little like how we perceive other people.
Good intentions do not count. Pride, love and duty mean little. What exactly can you do and do for the world?
Abilities are not rewarded simply for what they are. Any appreciation from the society stems from the selfish views of other people. A diligent janitor is rewarded by society less than an unscrupulous broker. An oncologist gets less than a supermodel. Why? Because it is a rarer skill and affects more people.
We would like to think that society values ​​those who work hard. Like this:



But in reality, social recognition is just a network effect. Recognition depends mainly on how many people you have influenced.



If you wrote a book, but do not publish it - you are nobody. If you wrote "Harry Potter" - everyone wants to know with you. Save someone's life - and you will become a hero only of your town, but if you save humanity from cancer - you will become a legend. Unfortunately, this applies to any talent, even to bad taste: undress in front of any one person - and maybe you will make him smile; but undress in front of fifty million, and you - Kim Kardashian.

You may think it is disgusting. You might be sick of it. Reality is not up to you. You are judged by what you can do and by the number of people who will be affected. If you do not accept it, of course, the world will seem terribly unfair to you.

And what about IT? Yes, actually, everything is the same. Of course, no one forces us to learn new skills with unprecedented speed, so that by the age of 25 we can become cooler than Gates. But ... consider an example from life. I once had the opportunity to work with a team that was led by a very intelligent guy, let's call him Nicanor, by the way, he was then 28 years old. One of his colleagues, who was 40 at the time, and who always lacked money, asked Nikanor about how he came to life like that. He responded as if he was reading this article, although a couple of years ago it was not written yet. So, starting from the first course, Nikanor, a theoretical physicist, began to work in an Internet cafe in a student hostel (well, what: you can play for free, the Internet is also free, and even fun, plus - money is paid and taught understanding of the admin work). Then Nikanor was not enough, and in parallel he began to receive the second higher education, already in programming. But even here he did not calm down - as soon as the opportunity turned up, he went to France for an internship. Yes, they paid sparingly there, and many did not understand why he was being carried there. But Nicanor found a side job in France, so it became freer with the money, he also had a lot of friends. And he returned to his homeland with knowledge of the language, certificates of international standard and experience in foreign companies. And in the future, always combined the main work with something else to grow. When I saw Nicanor for the last time, he was the technical director of a local branch of a very famous American corporation (electronic payment systems). The moral of this story is: learn, meet, talk about yourself, do not be lazy! By the way, the former subordinate of Nicanor still suffers from a lack of money. And yes, I still have not learned anything new ...

Rule number 3: Our idea of ​​honesty implicated in selfishness

People like to create authority. That is why judges are needed in sports and legal matters. We have a certain innate idea of ​​what is good and what is bad, and we hope that the world corresponds to such a view. So parents told us. This we heard from the teachers. If you behave yourself, you'll get a candy.
But the reality is not like that. You studied like a damn, but you failed an exam. You worked day and night, but you were not promoted. You love her, and she loves you not.



The problem is not that life is unjust; you have the wrong concept of justice.

Take a look at the person you like, but who doesn't like you. This is a person. Person with years of experience, not at all like yours. A real person who interacts every year with hundreds of thousands of other people.
And what is this secret, thanks to which this person should automatically choose you as the love of all life? Just for what you are? For having any feelings for this person? It may matter to you, but this person makes decisions regardless of you.

In the same way, we like to hate bosses, parents, politicians. They are judged unfairly. They are stupid. Because they do not agree with me! Because they are stupid! Because the most important authority is me, authority all over the world!
No doubt, there are the nastiest authorities. But not all of them are evil, not all of them are selfish monsters who only think about how to fill their pockets and humiliate you. Most of them just want the best, but not in the circumstances in which you are.

Perhaps they know something that you do not know - it may turn out that you will go broke if they do not make some unpopular decision. Perhaps, their priorities are not the same as yours — say, long-term growth, and not momentary happiness.

And although it all hurts you, the behavior of others has nothing to do with some kind of cosmic justice by which you are judged. This is just a side effect of your existence.

And what about IT? Everyone in the same office had another comrade, let's call him Mitrofan. He was a business analyst. And he did his job quite well. But! He considered everyone around to be stupid. Testers did not work properly, logistics were generally strange types (because they were sitting opposite him and smiling!), Content managers did not succeed at all (because their boss was a girl), and those who worked with ERP were simply the epitome of Evil. It is clear that this was reported to all others. And in the face, and behind his back. As a result, Nikanor decided that it was better to take the analyst who was less capable, but also less obsessed with himself and his views, instead of Mitrofan. Moral: the world does not revolve around one person, and there are other opinions than yours and the wrong. By the way, now Mitrofan is working on himself. I do not know how he, but the team, deprived of his bilious comments, feels much better!

Why life is unfair

Our ideas about justice are not feasible in practice. This is just a messy fantasy dump.



Can you imagine how crazy life would be if it really was “fair” for everyone and for everyone? No one would fall in love for the fear that this is not the love of all life and that you can break your heart. All firms would immediately go bankrupt, because all their employees turned out to be evil for someone. Relations would end only with the simultaneous death of partners. Rain would drip only on the villains.

Most of us are so fixated on how the world should be arranged, which does not notice how it is arranged in reality. But the key to understanding the world can simply be to turn to face it - and, therefore, to all its possibilities.

PS If the topic is “hooked”, you can continue with articles from the same author “All life is a game. Strategy of victory "